General Election 2015

[Bold Seagull]

The Austerity Delusion - worth a read if you have the time! By Paul Krugman, who won the Nobel memorial prize in economic sciences in 2008 and is a columnist for the New York Times.

http://www.theguardian.com/business/ng-interactive/2015/apr/29/the-austerity-delusion

 

[larus]

But scrapping trident or tax raises surely = living within your means.

What those who want huge cuts often forget is the added costs of service cuts. I work in housing and cutting social housing has led to billions of pounds increase in the housing benefit bill - all paid to private landlords. Also has an impact on health, social care and education budgets.

It's just not that simple

Housing is a totally separate issue. I would relax planning laws and encourage extensive house building. There is a hidden transfer of wealth from young to old with rising house prices (when they rise in excess of inflation). More land need to be made available and the infrastructure created to support this. Once there is a redress of the supply/demand, then house prices will naturally decrease, which will be a good thing. Also, the boost to the economy would be beneficial from the house-building activity. Houses would then be more affordable, and the increase in disposable income would stimulate the economy even more.

This does not negate the requirement for the country to live within it's means. If you want to call that austerity as it suits your political leanings, that's your choice. I prefer a more realistic choice of word/phrase such as prudence, living with your means, balancing the budget.

 

[larus]

Even Stevie Wonder can see the plan isn't working.

Bearing in mind your support of the EU project, apart from Germany, which countries in the EU are roaring away? France? Italy? Portugal? Spain? Greece? Netherlands? Hmm, considering this is a GLOBAL economy, sometimes I wonder why so may people can't grasp the fact that if our nearest market is up sh1t creek, that this will have a detrimental impact on us. Oh, I know. BLIND political allegiance.

 

[Simster]

Well you could if there was any likelihood that the tory press would cover them in an honest way. But given that they currently have a poodle in number 10 who owes them loads now, and don't want the other guy who despite being abused and ridiculed by them for 5 years is within touching distance of number 10, that was never going to happen

Yep, this. The Tories solution to improving the economy was to slash spending, naturally hitting hardest those who need it the most. When that caused the economy to threaten to dip into recession, they eased off and the economy slowly began to recover. At that point, Osborne was telling anyone who would listen that they were doing a good job.

As far as I'm concerned, this is rather like repeatedly punching yourself in the face, then stopping for 5 minutes before lauding the fact that your face doesn't hurt any more.

I don't care which party governs, but if you really are that worried about the levels of public spending (and personally, I'm not) then do it by increasing the taxation base - either by expanding the economy or closing some of the loopholes that need to be closed, or both.

 

[Herr Tubthumper]

Bearing in mind your support of the EU project, apart from Germany, which countries in the EU are roaring away? France? Italy? Portugal? Spain? Greece? Netherlands? Hmm, considering this is a GLOBAL economy, sometimes I wonder why so may people can't grasp the fact that if our nearest market is up sh1t creek, that this will have a detrimental impact on us. Oh, I know. BLIND political allegiance.

So. The UK economy is not as shit as Spain and Greece. The EU is to blame. Great arguments

 

[synavm]

Bearing in mind your support of the EU project, apart from Germany, which countries in the EU are roaring away? France? Italy? Portugal? Spain? Greece? Netherlands? Hmm, considering this is a GLOBAL economy, sometimes I wonder why so may people can't grasp the fact that if our nearest market is up sh1t creek, that this will have a detrimental impact on us. Oh, I know. BLIND political allegiance.

That hasn't stopped the Tories banging on about how Labour signle handedly wrecked the economy, acting as the opposition even when in Government, when clearly the crash (as with the vast majority of recessions or economic dips) was the sum of many parts.

 

[Machiavelli]

Is that a comment or an actual post?

My brief comments were the bread in the sandwich; the filling was provided by Mike Smithson from the political betting site.

 

[Ernest]

Well you could if there was any likelihood that the tory press would cover them in an honest way. But given that they currently have a poodle in number 10 who owes them loads now, and don't want the other guy who despite being abused and ridiculed by them for 5 years is within touching distance of number 10, that was never going to happen

Imagine the outrage in Murdoch's rags if Cameron does get reelected and WEASELS out of the 2017 EU in/out referendum, that would be worth seeing

 

[Westdene Seagull]

So. The UK economy is not as shit as Spain and Greece. The EU is to blame. Great arguments

Boy you talk some bollocks on this thread. So previously you suggested the UK was poor at manufacturing and I posted the league table that showed that we were the 7th biggest manufacturer in the world. Now, yet again, your doing the UK down due to your complete blind lapdog following of Labour.

Here you go, in 2014 the UK had the second largest economy in the EU and fifth in the WORLD. You have every right to support whatever political party you like but please stop lying about the UKs performance. Maybe you'd like to give up your UK citizenship in favour of a German one given you appear to hate the UK so much.

 

[Herr Tubthumper]

Boy you talk some bollocks on this thread. So previously you suggested the UK was poor at manufacturing and I posted the league table that showed that we were the 7th biggest manufacturer in the world. Now, yet again, your doing the UK down due to your complete blind lapdog following of Labour.

Here you go, in 2014 the UK had the second largest economy in the EU and fifth in the WORLD. You have every right to support whatever political party you like but please stop lying about the UKs performance. Maybe you'd like to give up your UK citizenship in favour of a German one given you appear to hate the UK so much.

View attachment 64991

We were talking about growth, not size. Just because something is big, it doesn't mean it's performing well. So please stop misunderstanding what is being discussed. If you want to challenge my statement provide a ranking of current economic growth and stop muddling apples with oranges.

 

[franks brother]

 

[Westdene Seagull]

We were talking about growth, not size. Just because something is big, it doesn't mean it's performing well. So please stop misunderstanding what is being discussed. If you want to challenge my statement provide a ranking of current economic growth and stop muddling apples with oranges.

Oh dear Poor old Germany outdone by SPAIN !!!!

 

[seagullsovergrimsby]

Is Dodgy Dave turning into Delboy ?

No income tax, no VAT
No money back, no guarantee
Black or white, rich or broke
We'll cut benefits at a stroke

 

[ROSM]

Imagine the outrage in Murdoch's rags if Cameron does get reelected and WEASELS out of the 2017 EU in/out referendum, that would be worth seeing

Cameron, the prime minister who has demonstrated knowing the price of everything and value of nothing, has decided to damage the union to save his sorry arse. He would grab with both hands the opportunity to damage our European linkages if it would save his skin

 

[Simster]

Oh dear Poor old Germany outdone by SPAIN !!!!

But Germany's economy is 3 times the size of Spain's.

If your economy is massive, it is very hard to make it grow rapidly. That's why China's rate of growth is unsustainable - at some point it will simply settle down like every other formerly aggressively expanding economy in the world, ever.

It also explains why Malta, Luxembourg and Ireland are all growing the fastest. And incidentally, they're all inside the Eurozone.

 

[janee]

Housing is a totally separate issue. I would relax planning laws and encourage extensive house building. There is a hidden transfer of wealth from young to old with rising house prices (when they rise in excess of inflation). More land need to be made available and the infrastructure created to support this. Once there is a redress of the supply/demand, then house prices will naturally decrease, which will be a good thing. Also, the boost to the economy would be beneficial from the house-building activity. Houses would then be more affordable, and the increase in disposable income would stimulate the economy even more.

This does not negate the requirement for the country to live within it's means. If you want to call that austerity as it suits your political leanings, that's your choice. I prefer a more realistic choice of word/phrase such as prudence, living with your means, balancing the budget.

I disagree about housing is a special case and used it as an example. You could make just the same argument about cutting health, education or social care as they all will result in increased costs later. I think we need to count the costs of "living within our means" now rather than investing in the future.

 

[Westdene Seagull]

But Germany's economy is 3 times the size of Spain's.

If your economy is massive, it is very hard to make it grow rapidly. That's why China's rate of growth is unsustainable - at some point it will simply settle down like every other formerly aggressively expanding economy in the world, ever.

It also explains why Malta, Luxembourg and Ireland are all growing the fastest. And incidentally, they're all inside the Eurozone.

I agree - which is why I originally posted the size of the economies but Herr objected to that and said he was talking about growth ..... so I posted the growth figures.

 

[larus]

I agree - which is why I originally posted the size of the economies but Herr objected to that and said he was talking about growth ..... so I posted the growth figures.

You can't win. Whichever way you look at it, the economy isn't doing bad. Growth rate has dropped slightly, but it's still growing stronger than most other developed countries. However, the left have been blinded by the rhetoric of "Evil Tories", "Spend, spend, spend".

In response to [MENTION=4251]ROSM[/MENTION], and CMD "Cameron, the prime minister who has demonstrated knowing the price of everything and value of nothing", the lefties think throwing money at public services is OK, irrespective of the value for money. As soon as anyone mention 'efficiency', they relate this to cuts. This is why I now detest politics...

 

[Machiavelli]

I see the preliminary gdp figures for the first quarter of this year show
growth of 0.3% down from 0.6% for the last quarter of last year .
In terms of GDP growth per capita both would be weaker still.
It seems the slowest recovery in modern history is slowing down.
This is the plan that is working?

Top phrase. Labour's greatest failure this parliament is that it allowed Osborne to get away with the narrative that Labour crashed the economy, and the 'long-term' Tory economic plan has saved it. Economies have grown significantly following recessions. The economy was growing when Osborne took over, but he crashed it. His performance has been dire, but he's the best turd-polisher I've ever heard.

On a different but related note, the slow economic recovery is very much in line with Piketty's claim that the 21st century will be a low growth one. Given climate change and other environmental factors this, in my view, is not as bad as first appears, but we need to do the following to adjust to it:
-- redistribute such that everyone has certain basic necessities (food, shelter, employment, healthcare, education, sanitation, etc)
-- reorient our mindset such that we can prosper without unnecessary material goods, and value other things such as relationships, mental wellbeing, education, etc

 

[Simster]

I agree - which is why I originally posted the size of the economies but Herr objected to that and said he was talking about growth ..... so I posted the growth figures.

Reading back the last couple of pages, this is a recap as I read it:

HT first responded in support of a post suggesting that the feeble preliminary GDP figures for the first quarter of this year show that the current policies are barely working. Larus then seems to suggest that hardly any economy in the EU was roaring away, to which HT rhetorically claimed that it must all be the fault of the EU.

A bit churlish maybe, but it's a fair point. Your growth diagram is slightly out of date and I doubt you'll find one that shows the first quarter of this year for all G8 countries.